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Thursday, April 5, 2012

Good Story 031: To Be or Not to Be (1942)

Episode 31 (even though Scott calls it 41 - ignore him) has Julie and Scott talking about the 1942 film To Be or Not to Be. Turns out that's not the only question, because they end up talking politics.

“We are confident this will be upheld, because it should be upheld,” Obama said in a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

The U.S. president said it would be an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” for a majority of the nine justices to overturn a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically–elected Congress.

Rejecting the law would be an example of “judicial activism,” which conservatives like to complain about, he noted, where “an un-elected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

Just finished the film tonight. Really interested to hear what you have to say. As with Casablanca, sobering to remember this movie was made during the war. And since Lombard died shortly after this, about six weeks before the movie was released, returning from a War Bonds rally, can we call her a war hero? As to whether it's appropriate to make a comedy on such a subject, I defer to St. Thomas More: "The Devil, the proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked." And if he cannot, I suppose it burned the Nazi backsides as well. (Does anyone know when the predominant English pronunciation of Nazi went from "Nozzy" to "Notzy"?)

I didn't notice that you mentioned this, so I will: this movie was remade by the execrable Mel Brooks in 1983. I can tell purely from your description; I have not seen the original. The Brooks version must be substantially revised, since I remember it containing the usual Brooksian raunchiness, and my mentioning the remake is not intended to be understood as an implied endorsement.